Here's a plot of claimed mass versus list price for these pedals. Listings contained only a single number, for an AeroLite Ti Road, and that was a few grams over claimed. Cleat mass is close to a wash, so I omitted that (TriRig claims cleats w/ screws, others w/o, so I can't include that).

added The present batch are sold out. Would be cool to add hollow axle option next time.

I knew there would be people interested in dual versions. Unfortunately, we discovered it wasn't simply rider weight that plays into pedal failure - even a light rider who's very strong can use their upper body to "pull" themselves harder against the pedal, causing greater force than their weight alone would suggest. So we couldn't predictably say that "under X kilograms, the hollow spindles are safe." And I simply was not comfortable having a product in the marketplace that could fail at such a critical point on the bike, possibly causing real injury. So I made a firm decision ONLY to produce the solid-spindle version. The hollow cores will not be made available.

Yeah, it would have been cool to be able to claim the "world's lightest pedals." But make no mistake, the solid-core Mercury pedals are still INCREDIBLY light. At 93g for the pair, they're still a whopping 30% lighter than Speedplay Nanograms! They're almost 65% lighter than Shimano Dura-Ace! Yet they don't have the compromises that the other pedals in this category do -- Aerolite pedals don't work on normal shoes, and Ultralite pedals require a two-step entry AND exit (making me very concerned about emergency exits). Mercury is incredibly simple to enter and exit, and will never pose a problem during emergency exits.

To me, there's much more to these pedals than just being silly light; I think they are amazing beyond their (still) amazingly low weight. There's the industry-lowest stack height, the Q-factor adjustment, the simplicity and ease of maintenance, etc. Yeah, it's *possible* to drop a couple more grams, but I'm delighted that just a few grams of extra titanium made it possible for EVERYONE to safely enjoy the benefits of Mercury.

I simply was not comfortable having a product in the marketplace that could fail at such a critical point on the bike, possibly causing real injury. So I made a firm decision ONLY to produce the solid-spindle version. The hollow cores will not be made available..

Good call. It also makes things easier on the business to have fewer product lines and production methods to stock and support. This looks like a great pedal technology. I'm sitting out the early iterations but I'm tempted to try them out in the next 24-36 months. I've seen them on bike already (at a hill climb time trial) and like the minimalist look.

I see Q-factor adjustment as an advantage, but Aerolite comes in two different spindle lengths, so if you chose the correct one, adjustability isn't needed. Aerolite has issues with cleat drilling pattern, of course, but they can be made to work with either 2-hole or 3-hole hole patterns.

Since the two pedals are relatively similar, I wonder what it is about the Aerolite that allows it to be reliable (34 years now) at close to 20 grams lighter and with hollow spindles while your pedals need solid spindles.

BTW, I've found a lot of reports of people who used to use Aerolite then switched, but not many who still use them. They've obviously found the more complex pedals to provide value which they missed with the Aerolites, whether that's float, or ability to walk in the shoes, or tendency of cleats to wear rapidly just putting feet down at traffic lights. It seems to me the Mercury's aren't that different. If you like them, fantastic, but with the increased mass, I'm tempted to stick with Speedplay with Al bowties and 4-hole shoes.

Both are good, but I prefer the Aerolite for riding. Very stable, no play to speak of, just feels very direct. Especially love the low stack height (feels more natural, pedalling closer to a circle) and great cornering clearance. I was tempted by the Mercury / Ultralite mainly because of the adjustable cleats, but now that I have my Aerolite cleats dialled in and they are lighter, I'm looking for some more Aerolites to replace the Looks on my second bike.

Aerolite has issues with cleat drilling pattern, of course, but they can be made to work with either 2-hole or 3-hole hole patterns.

Well, sortof. On three-hole shoes (virtually all modern road shoes), the "3-hole-compatible" Aerolite cleat puts the spindle at a position that's quite a bit too far rearward compared to traditional cleats. For me, that alone is a deal-breaker. I used them for some time with cleats drilled into the shoes, but it was again not quite ideal, and there isn't much room for adjustment once you've drilled your shoes. For example, you can't move 1-2mm in any direction, because you won't be able to drill a new hole without running into the old one.

I think the first big difference between Mercury and Aerolite is in the fact that Mercury was designed, from the beginning, to be used with modern shoes, making it easy to put the cleat in a correct position for your pedaling. Then there's the Q-factor adjustment, which can be done much more easily and in finer increments than Aerolite. No need to buy additional parts - Mercury comes with everything you need for a full 9mm of adjustment in each spindle. The cleats are also simpler, making them easier to clean.

Some of the other similarities you pointed out are certainly there, just as LOOK, Shimano, Time, and other ski-binding-type pedals have a lot of striking similarities to one another.

- despite the quite long usage time, had issues with quick clip-in because the feet engaging pattern is different (you need to bend the ankle outwards instead of twisting it as with traditional systems). And I couldn't get around the feeling that, if I crashed, I wouldn't manage to clip out in time (because ankle twisting for me was a much more natural movement than bending), thus, possibly resulting in additional damage to the leg- the pedals got hot to the point that, when unclipping and accidentally touching the pedal with bare skin for any reason, it could be painful. I guess, that's caused by construction where the rotating part of the pedal is simultaneously the bearing and also the clip-in mechanism which holds your shoe to the pedal- the pedals tended to squeak in longer rides (might be because of the heat mentioned above)- left side pedal unscrewed once while riding, leading me to a crash (luckily, just some road rash because it happened in training). While, with high probability, this was my error by not tightening it enough (never happened with any other pedal so far, though ), I guess that there might have been some contribution to this event by the design of the pedal

Eventually, I sent them back, mainly because of the first con mentioned above. Just couldn't get around it in my head.

I have used aerolites on all my bikes now for almost 30 years.....since mid 80's. Got my firest set from Bill Goldfoos down in Modesto. I have had absolutely no problems whatsoever...but then maybe I just don't need pedal play.

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